There is a charged, buzzing energy running through this month that may feel like you’re on your tenth cup of coffee after skipping lunch — but this isn’t the only story! April, the first full month of spring, can feel lusciously ripe with possibility and fresh new blossomings, but it can also disappoint us with sudden frosts. To keep your relationships less precarious than the weather, pay attention to the deeper messages of this particular April:

Slow is golden. You may be all hopped up on sunshine and pollen and seeing each other’s beautiful bare skin again, but remember to take your time. Be like honey dripping out of a jar. Go so slowly, it’s tormenting. As we’ve got a slew of heavy-hitting planets moving retrograde this month, it’s time to consider all angles and layers before jumping into anything. Retrograde planets remind us to pay closer attention to what we take for granted, and to notice where we’ve skipped any steps. Haste, in this case, means needing to go back and fix everything you messed up while you were high on Aries energy and springtime. Patience means letting things ripen in their own time.

Have faith in change. Specifically, trust your capacity to change and to have a changed life. This month brings us the second of three encounters between Jupiter — planet of hope, faith, and abundance — and Pluto, planet of deep transformation and seeing what’s hidden. These encounters bring with them the energy needed to make tremendous positive changes in your life, if you’re willing to believe you can. Keep dating unavailable alcoholics? Haven’t had a date in years? Can’t get over your ex? Don’t believe in your own sexiness? All these patterns can change. This influence offers you a gust of wind in your sails, pushing you toward uncharted territory. All you’ve got to do is keep those sails up and steer — believing in that distant shore you’ve never yet visited.

Balancing newness, discovery, and big energies with this slow and trusting journey is no easy feat. Take some time on the 16th, during the New Moon in Aries (and a day after Mercury goes direct!) to set some intentions for everything you’d like to call in this year and everything you’re ready to let go of. Then trust that time is on your side. Whatever growing pains you feel this month, keep your eye on the longterm vision. Above all, have faith in the love you deserve — that it exists, that you can find it, that you are worthy of it.

Find me for readings this month if you want some personalized insights about all that is the unique and beautiful about your course in life, with some extra focus on how the Jupiter-Pluto aspects can uncover meaningful change for you. As always, for these horoscopes read your Venus and Moon signs first, followed by your Sun and rising. Use these for what they can give you, and discard anything you don’t need. And remember — you’ve got this!

Aries

The ball’s in your court right now, but that doesn’t mean you know what to do with it. This month brings you a lot of focus, energy, and power — but it may feel mystifying, trying to decide where to direct all this potential. The best way to solve this mystery? Turn inward for awhile. Notice what you’ve already started moving away from. It’ll help you recognize what you’re moving toward. Make those transitions as clear and clean as possible, so you won’t need to retread old territory. Above all, let yourself face mistakes you still regret making and fully let them go, trusting you’ve learned from them. Let those parts of you die and let another you be reborn.

Risk believing in: Your power to transform. Healing your heart as a public service. Facing your demons with utmost skill and integrity.

Taurus

The beauty of Taurus planets is how much they revel in their sensuality, inviting everyone they care about to slow down and savor the sweetness of being in a body. One downside of planets in Taurus is how attached they get to anything, or anyone, that once brought them pleasure. Taurus is notorious for holding on long after it’s wise to do so. A central theme coming up for you around partnership this month is stepping into your capacity to choose. Attachment, familiarity, and fear of an uncertain future can hold you back from moving toward experiences that would free you, delight you, and connect you to a larger world than what you’re currently aware of. Risk uncertainty; choose wisely.

Risk believing in: Choosing wisely, and being chosen. Feeling close to someone who may be very different from you. Love as commitment to possibility, not as a guarantee.

Gemini

Good sex means good communication, and that starts with your internal dialogue. What are you telling yourself about what you desire — or, more importantly, what aren’t you telling yourself? What can you voice to yourself but not to your partner? How much are you settling? This month you have a tough assignment, but the rewards could be incredible: first, let yourself in on what would really rock your world. Then, take the first step toward getting it. If this feels self-indulgent or less important than everything else on your to-do list, think of it as necessary for your emotional health.

Risk believing in: Sexuality as a healing force. Caring for yourself by uncovering hidden desires. Your right to be complex, to contain multitudes.

Cancer

How can you make your partnerships feel more fun right now? As Björk sings, “It’s not meant to be a struggle uphill.” Whether it’s a sweetheart, a BFF, or a business partner that’s starting to feel like all commitment and no excitement, it’s time to shake yourself out of the rut and try something new. Not just new for the sake of novelty, but because you’ve both been changing. The old patterns may not suit the new you. This doesn’t have to mean heavy processing — the best way to keep these longterm connections alive is to keep having fun together. Choose joy over obligations whenever you can this month, especially in any relationship that’s starting to feel dull, stressed, or distant.

Risk believing in: Ease, enjoyment, and playfulness. Your capacity to choose joy. Clarity that comes through pleasure.

Leo

This year is teaching you to love more wisely and more completely than you ever have before. Whatever ups and downs you’ve been facing (and will continue to work through), you are shifting your understanding about everything that can block you from the sweet stuff. It takes a lot of work and a lot of faith to believe you can transform the bad patterns you kept getting trapped in — but you can. This month asks you to really imagine the kind of love that could help you feel safe, cared for, and protected — and believe in your capacity to find that and to offer that to the ones you love. Trust that all these minor adjustments you’re making now are leading somewhere profoundly magical.

Risk believing in: Real nourishment. Love that feeds you home-cooked meals and tucks you into bed at night. Self-love that lets you choose this kind of love.

Virgo

No one likes to be ignored, but Virgo folks can sometimes put up with it longer than others. That’s because you’re not in it for the glory, but for leaving everyone you love better off for knowing you. You may hope the object of your affection will one day fall hard for you when she realized how quietly and humbly you’ve been improving her life. Or you may feel like when your crush ignores you, they’re offering you a challenge — motivation to keep improving and perfecting yourself until you really deserve their attention. If one of these stories is coming up for you right now, don’t believe it! To paraphrase Morrissey, you are human and you need to be loved, just like everyone else. Most important, you deserve to be loved and cherished exactly as you are right now. Stop wasting your time on anyone who isn’t amazed at their good fortune to be with you. Believe that you can command center stage, and that once you’re there you’ll know exactly what to do. Risk trusting that exactly as you are is enough.

Risk believing in: Your voice and what you have to say. Your right to demand attention. That you are perfect enough in this moment.

Libra

There’s a lot from your childhood that’s coming up lately, in obvious or subtle ways. This month highlights those themes, but also sheds a ray of light on how to move out of the more painful, stuck feelings. What you learned about love as a little kid will keep coming up in all your adult relationships, romantic ones especially. But guess what? Some stories get to change. This month, pile up all the junk you learned about love that you really don’t need anymore—messages that you were somehow not enough, that your feelings don’t matter, that you’re selfish or bad for expressing boundaries — whatever you’re done believing in, it’s time to toss that garbage out. Your main task for the month is to notice when those feelings and stories come up, and give yourself a chance to recognize and let them go. It’s time to make room for so much more nourishing forms of love.

Risk believing in: Your power to heal what’s wounded in your family — for yourself and future generations. Gathering up what’s sweet in your life without fear you’ll have to lose it.

Scorpio

Sure, you can suffer like a champ. You can endure all the crisis, all the drama, all the neglect, if you have to. But do you have to? Are your only choices to be in relationships that keep opening old wounds, or to be miserably lonely? The problem is that you do thrive on the growth opportunities that arise when you dive deep into the thornier areas of intimacy. You’re here to get vulnerable. But how can you get that needed depth and also choose happiness? Can you imagine what your version of romantic happiness would look like? Try to build that image. This is a month when the more clearly you can see that possibility, the closer you come to making it real. One hint: Start by understanding what you need in order to feel trust. Another hint: Trust isn’t something you work hard at achieving; you recognize it when your nervous system automatically relaxes.

Risk believing in: Your capacity to be happy. Being seen and heard by someone trustworthy. Knowing yourself as a path toward knowing others.

Sagittarius

The path forward may still feel very unclear. For most of this year, you’re learning to sense what you really need — rather than what you think you want. It will take time for the fullness of this to make itself visible. Meanwhile, you’ve been more aware of what you lack than what you have. This month reminds you that you are surrounded by opportunities for intimacy, joy, playfulness, nourishment, and growth — you just haven’t recognized them yet. You may be fixated on one person who couldn’t give you what you needed, or you may have resigned yourself to not looking for what doesn’t seem to be available. Right now, tune your radio antennae to some stations you don’t normally pay attention to. Let yourself be surprised.

Risk believing in: Hidden resources. Abundance that you can’t yet see. Help where you wouldn’t think to look for it.

Capricorn

At times you give up hope for everyone around you. Capricorn energy is the hardest working of the zodiac, and folks with Capricorn in their charts often scratch their heads in confusion when they watch what everyone else is getting up to. We all have different agendas, here, but yours is primarily to build a life you can be proud of, continuing to learn and grow along the way. This month asks you to tap back into the idealism you’ve felt in less cynical moods. Notice where old disappointments may have blocked you from believing that a certain kind of group efforts is possible. Especially in your closest relationships, this is a time to believe in the full capacities of others to support and complement your efforts.

Risk believing in: Idealism. Particularly, what you most want to change in your communities, and how you can be at the center of that change — but not the only one pitching in.

Aquarius

Picture the life you’d like to live. Who are you in this scenario? How are you in your relationships? Charming, witty, generous, respectful — never too needy, demanding, or emotional? Take a closer look at this picture: how close do you feel to the people you care about? Are you always holding something back? This month, it’s time to grow toward becoming your best self by taking different risks. What would happen if you showed more of your vulnerabilities rather than less? What would happen if you made room for mystery and uncertainty? What are you holding back that’s become too heavy to keep holding?

Risk believing in: Becoming your best self by letting go of your ambitions. If you align your efforts with your natural ebbs and flows of energy, you’ll achieve more than if you just keep pushing. Mystery will get you where you need to go.

Pisces

You’re on a mission this month to broaden your perspective. Your tendency is to open yourself too wide and get flooded by all the needs, feelings, and opinions of the wide world — or to put up big shields and only connect with a few chosen intimates. This month, though, asks you to remember what you and only you can share with your larger world — not by letting them trample down your boundaries and storm your inner sanctum — but through you reaching out to share your wisdom, empathy, and experiences with them. There is somewhere you are needed right now, as a teacher and as a peer. Believe in your capacity to transform what you touch.

Risk believing in: Love that you don’t have to hoard. Your constant, immediate connection to a larger world of people who love you. How love can teach us to heal toxic patterns in our communities.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!